New York Times columnist and Democratic hack Paul Krugman tweeted paranoia on Friday alleging that FBI Director James Comey was rigging the election for Trump, by informing Congress of an update in the FBI’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s classified document scandal: “If we don't hear more from Comey, we just have to conclude that he was trying to swing election. And *that* should be the story.” That after weeks of the Times saying such talk was a threat to democracy.
Krugman didn’t dare go that far in print in his Monday column “Working the Refs,” but he did bring some extra brio to his tired, false trope about Republicans successfully intimidating the media into negative coverage of Hillary Clinton and “news organizations, afraid of being attacked for bias, [giving] evenhanded treatment to lies and truth.” And Comey, by keeping Congress informed of his investigation, as he pledged under oath to do, has “destroyed his own reputation.”
The cryptic letter James Comey, the F.B.I. director, sent to Congress on Friday looked bizarre at the time -- seeming to hint at a major new Clinton scandal, but offering no substance. Given what we know now, however, it was worse than bizarre, it was outrageous. Mr. Comey apparently had no evidence suggesting any wrongdoing by Hillary Clinton; he violated longstanding rules about commenting on politically sensitive investigations close to an election; and he did so despite being warned by other officials that he was doing something terribly wrong.
So what happened? We may never know the full story, but the best guess is that Mr. Comey, like many others -- media organizations, would-be nonpartisan advocacy groups, and more -- let himself be bullied by the usual suspects. Working the refs -- screaming about bias and unfair treatment, no matter how favorable the treatment actually is -- has been a consistent, long-term political strategy on the right. And the reason it keeps happening is because it so often works.
You see this most obviously in news coverage. Reporters who find themselves shut up in pens at Trump rallies while the crowd shouts abuse shouldn’t be surprised: constant accusations of liberal media bias have been a staple of Republican rhetoric for decades. And why not? The pressure has been effective.
Part of this effectiveness comes through false equivalence: news organizations, afraid of being attacked for bias, give evenhanded treatment to lies and truth. Way back in 2000 I suggested that if a Republican candidate said that the earth was flat, headlines would read, “Views differ on shape of planet.” That still happens.
The desire to get right-wing critics off one’s back may also explain why the news media keep falling for fake scandals.
Those "false scandals" would include Whitewater and the Clinton Foundation.
Krugman even suggested it was only proper that conservatives be barred from the groves of academe.
And as someone who still keeps a foot in the academic world, I’ve been watching pressure build on universities to hire more conservatives. Never mind the way climate denial, attacks on the theory of evolution, and all that may have pushed academics out of the G.O.P. The fact that relatively few conservatives teach, say, physics, is supposed to be grossly unfair. And you know some schools will start hiring less qualified people in response.
Which brings us back to Mr. Comey. It seemed obvious from the start that Mrs. Clinton’s decision to follow Colin Powell’s advice and bypass State Department email was a mistake, but nothing remotely approaching a crime. But Mr. Comey was subjected to a constant barrage of demands that he prosecute her for … something. He should simply have said no. Instead, even while announcing back in July that no charges would be filed, he editorialized about her conduct -- a wholly inappropriate thing to do, but probably an attempt to appease the right.
It didn’t work, of course. They just demanded more. And it looks as if he tried to buy them off by throwing them a bone just a few days before the election. Whether it will matter politically remains to be seen, but one thing is clear: he destroyed his own reputation.
